The March to 1 Nap: A Practical Guide to Baby Nap Transitions (4m-18m-ish)

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

I joined the r/sleeptrain community around this time last year, as a desperate FTM to a then 4mo navigating sleep training, the 4-3 transition, PPD, and the whole shebang. It’s been a crazy journey. I talked to countless parents here over the year to learn, exchange tips, have friendly disagreements, and just commiserate. Couldn’t have done it without all of you here.This is a piece on some of the observations and theories on baby sleep I’ve developed over the past year. They came into focus for me around 6-8m as I navigated the 3-2 transition and 8m sleep regression. I wanted to hold off on writing this post until I have actually had a chance to test the theory during the 2-1 transition. Having done that, I’ve made some tweaks, and am just sharing my experience here in hope that someone will find it useful.Disclaimers:

1. This post is LOOONG. I have a table of contents down there so you can skip to the most relevant parts. Do try to read "Part 1: The Theory” as it’s the underpinning to everything that comes after.
2. All wake windows (WWs) are “natural”, meaning time from eyes open to eyes closed and no longer moving. WW1 is calculated by actual wake time unless otherwise stated, even if I don’t start the day until DWT. Bedtime is when baby is asleep: putdown would be about 15min earlier.
3. When I say “sleep requirement”, I mean the maximum amount of sleep your baby is capable of sleeping within 24 hours. The average is about 12-15 hours in the 4m-18m range. This is different from the minimum amount, which is the amount humans technically needs to survive, which virtually all babies hit because below that the body just goes into survival mode. There is some research (https://parentingscience.com/baby-sleep-deprivation/) that getting less sleep (more than the minimum, presumably, but not quite hitting the maximum) is associated with short-term downsides, like poorer emotional regulation, lower pain tolerance, and more erratic schedules. There is no convincing evidence that it causes a problem in long-time child development. I personally think aiming for the maximum, even if you don’t get there most days (we certainly don’t), is worthwhile, because those babies tend to end up on more stable schedules, have fewer night wakings, and have stabler mood throughout the day. Here’s a post on how to figure out the maximum sleep requirement for your baby (
   https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/comments/zw702y/troubleshooting_schedule_101_figuring_out_your
   ). There is a school of thought that restricts daytime sleep to consolidate night sleep where the total sleep amount would be closer to the minimum amount (e.g. Possum Approach, Georgina May). If that approach works for you, great! My LO will NOT let us take that approach, and the advice here may not help you if that is the approach you ascribe to.
4. This post is mostly aimed at parents of independent sleepers. Sleep associations is not the root of all evils, but can make it harder to troubleshoot and get sleep back on track, so I think it’s worthwhile to establish independent sleep before the 3-2 transition to make it easier for yourself (but you can obviously do it without!).Please also read this wonderful post on important sleep basics including adjusting for prematurity and how the circadian rhythm works (https://www.babysleepscience.com/si...ents-pediatricians-and-caregivers-should-know). Most of the info in this post derives from Ferber’s classic text (my one caveat is that it is focused more so on toddlers and older children, and so doesn’t pay enough attention to the role of “overtiredness” or “sleep debt” in babies and younger toddlers), Baby Sleep Science (best freely available information on baby sleep on the English language internet in my experience), Baby Central Sleep Forum (I left that community because I disagreed fundamentally with the mods on a lot of their approaches, but they do have some very experienced parents with very useful tips like the 3.5-rule for the 2-1 nap transition), my own experience, and finally my experience chatting with friends, coworkers, and parents on this sub.Table of ContentsART I. THE THEORYPART II: GENERAL TIPSPART III: 4-3 TRANSITIONPART IV: 3-2 TRANSITIONPART V: 2-1 TRANSITIONPART I. A theory on what is really happening during nap transitions and sleep regressions
5. WWs are a range. The average AND the range gets longer with age. For instance, a newborn may only be able to tolerate 30min awake, and even pushing it by 10min can cause a lot of fussing and distress. A 18mo, on the other hand, can probably handle 5-7 hours last WW, and even will stay up longer once in a blue moon if he needs to (e.g. traveling).
6. Sleep requirement decreases with age, but very slowly, e.g. 1 hour between 6 months and 18 months. That’s 5 minutes a month! You’re not going to really notice that day to day, so if your LO is suddenly sleeping 1 hour less than last week, it’s NOT because his/her sleep requirement has suddenly dropped—something else is afoot.
7. Sleep debt is a self-perpetuating cycle. This is because sleep debt -> night wakings -> loses sleep -> more sleep debt. Typically early morning sleep is the most susceptible, so the mildest sleep debt may manifest as your 8mo suddenly waking up 30 minutes earlier than usual and unable to fall back asleep OR your 6mo waking up for his usual snooze feed and falling asleep in your arms, but you can’t put him/her back down in the crib. These are all called early morning wakings (EMWs).
8. A schedule that perpetuates sleep debt is one in which total wake time (TWT), or sum of all WWs, is too long. A quick way to think about it is that sleep requirement + TWT should = 24 hours. If TWT is too long, there’s not enough sleep in the schedule. A baby who needs 15 hours of sleep a day, but who’s on a sleep schedule with 10 hours of TWT, will get 1 hour less sleep every day and sleep will suffer. To fix the situation, TWT will need to be

 

[nol]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hi there! I’ve been reading through your posts and love your insights. I’m in the midst of the 4 to 3 nap transition and really struggling. I’m blessed with a really happy baby who pretty much only cries around nap and bedtime, so I feel like I’m failing him I just cannot figure out his schedule!

1. We have false starts every night. Sometimes he will put himself back to sleep, but often he wakes up crying. I have tried a shorter/longer wake window in the evening and it doesn’t seem to fix it. We have also been doing a lot of cat naps in the evening to get him to bedtime, which sometimes works but sometimes doesn’t.
2. It takes him soooo long and lots of crying to fall asleep at bedtime. It’s so sad!
3. I have to wake him up every morning. He typically wakes between 4-6 and then I do a snooze feed. Then it seems like he would sleep forever. I was waking him at 8 for a while and then tried 7:30 to see if it would help the false starts. It just seems so wrong to wake him from a DEEP sleep every morning. Makes me think my schedule is off. There was a time (maybe a month or 2 ago) where he was waking up on his own between 7-7:30. It might also be important to note that after the snooze feed, he will roll around for 20-30 minutes and then fall asleep.
4. He seems to have forgotten how to connect nap cycles? He was doing a 1.5 hour nap for his first nap but now has gone back to 30-35 minutes, making the schedule even harder!

The first wake window is about 1.75 and the rest are 2 hours. If we’re doing a cat nap, it’s when he wakes from a nap between 4-5pm and then we split the difference to bedtime. Bedtime is between 7:30-8:30. On days when he doesn’t have the cat nap, I’ve found he actually does better with a shorter last wake window (closer to 1.75). Total sleep seems to hover around 15 hours. I do suspect that he’s higher sleep needs. All sleep is independent!

The good thing is that once I finally get him down from his false start, he sleeps until his morning feed! I’m scared of tweaking too much in case that falls apart too. I have a 3 year old with her own sleep issues and I can’t afford to have 2 kids up all the time haha!

Any ideas on what he needs??

ETA: he will be 5 months old next week!

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@nol False starts suck and are generally related to developmental readiness and insufficient daytime sleep. It kinda is unavoidable but will get better with time!

If he's still in deep sleep in the morning, just let him sleep in! This way you'll be able to get through the day on 3 naps more easily =) I always let my kid sleep in during nap transitions, and on days he sleeps in we do the schedule with the fewer naps!

 

[nol]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Thanks so much for your response!! Your posts have really helped me, especially the one about overtired/undertired. I rescued a nap yesterday and let him go for 3 hours, which I would normally cap, but he didn’t have a false start and slept great today!! I really appreciate the way you apply the baby science and rules to also feeling out where your baby is at. It’s so easy to get caught up in the “rules” and tune out what your baby is telling you. I think he just needed me to let him sleep

If you ever make that full post about nap transitions, I would love to see it! You have great insight!

 

[briank7]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hiya. You're literally my favourite person in life as you have saved me on so many occasions.

My girl is 12 months in a few weeks time and currently on 3/3.5/3.75. Nap 1 is independent and in cot and this has always been the longer one. On average it's 2 hours, but sometimes 1.5. Nap 2 is contact (by choice) and is 45 mins to an hour. Nighttime sleep is around 11 hours.

In your opinion, how do I approach the 2 to 1 transition. I feel that most people cap nap 1 and then aim for a long nap 2. I'm loathed to do this as nap 1 has always been the best one for her since she was a few months old. It's deep sleep, unassisted and it means she's well rested for our afternoon classes.

My plan was when she's ready, to stretch wake window 1 and then make nap 2 a cat nap. Is this a tactic that you think could work?

To complicate matters, she starts daycare at the end of this month. It's only for 2 days but my fear is despite them following our schedule and offering 2 naps, I have a feeling she'll either not sleep much or skip the afternoon one.

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@briank7 Hey, glad to hear that things are good!

My son is very similar: will nap till the cows come home in the morning, and then party all afternoon and all evening.

Your plan is basically what I would've done. As you get closer you're gonna head start getting early morning wakings as the sleep debt from late 2-nap schedule builds up. The key is to stick to your DWT. Do not get her no matter what happens, don't add a feed, and don't introduce light before DWT. This will keep her circadian rhythm locked into DWT as a wake up time. She will have days when she back asleep before DWT and sleeps past DWT: on those days, you can experiment with a longer first WW with goal of getting a long nap so you can do early bedtime. On days she doesn't fall back asleep before DWT, do first nap at 3 hours after WAKE UP time. You will notice that it takes her longer and longer to fall asleep for that nap (so her actual WW1 increases in length), and that she will wake up happy from that nap earlier and earlier and does not want to go back down even if you leave her for 15 minutes.

The 3.5 hour rule of thumb worked pretty well for us and should also for you based on your kid's sleep pattern (fairly similar to mine): when WW1 is no shorter than 3.5 hours (kiddo will NOT go down before) AND that nap is naturally an hour or shorter, you should be able to push that WW1 to 4-4.5 hours fairly easily and get on 1 nap. We hit this point around 15.5m.

For the second nap my son was independent sleeper, so we always offered it on 3 hours WW2 (you don't want to offer it too late because it's too close to bedtime at that point--wake maintenance zone) and gave him an hour to decide if he wants to sleep or not. The hour of quiet time also gave him the energy to make it to an early bedtime without getting overtired, even if he doesn't fall asleep. Since you are assisting her to sleep you can't quite do that. In that case you may want to build in a low-key activity like stroller walk to make the nap happen or to give her that quiet time.

Key is to cap second nap to prevent it from pushing bedtime back.

DWT and bedtime are two things you want to keep consistent for all nap transitions, but it's especially key for this one (otherwise you will end up with months of early morning wakings). You can do early bedtimes as needed to reset sleep debt but do NOT let bedtime get later. Likewise you can allow sleep ins past DWT to reset sleep debt but do NOT star the day earlier.

 

[briank7]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Thank you so much for taking the time out to reply. Great advice, I will keep a track of that first wake window and slowly adjust it to her needs.

We still follow wake windows and not by the clock. For this reason, bedtime can fluctuate by about 15 mins but I stick to a DWT of 7.30am. Half the time she's awake by 7.15 but groaning so half asleep. The other half I wake her.

Do you recall what your starting 2 nap schedule was? At this stage, I just cannot fathom how she will ever be on longer wake windows

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@briank7 Our starting 2 nap schedule was 2.75/3/4 and starting 1 nap was 4-4.5/5.5-6 roughly. I’ve always done bedtime by the clock so the last wake window fluctuates a bit, and my son always could tolerate a longer last WW for age but a shorter first WW for age.

I know some babies do better w a longer first WW and shorter last WW. This was just not us.

 

[briank7]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Thank you! I meant starting 1 nap schedule but you answered my actual question anyway!!!! Thank you

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hi! You have helped me so many times before so I feel bad reaching out again.. but here i am. The wheels have fallen off this past week and I’m at a loss!

Baby is 15months old. Transitioning from 2-1 nap. He takes 1 at daycare.. 12-2 but we try and offer him 2 on the other days. Usually 10-11:30/12 and 2:30-3ish. This past week- he’s only had 1 day of doing 2 naps. His sleep debt exploded and on Friday night he took 2hrs to fall asleep. Was then awake from 1:30- 4 when I eventually bought him into bed. He has never had a wake like this before and we have never bought him into our bed.. we got desperate- he slept until 7:30. The day after I tried to put him down at 10 for a nap but he wouldn’t, we tried a couple more times and he wouldn’t go down but he eventually passed out nursing on me and slept 3 hours. From 12:30-3:30. Went to bed at 7 and fell asleep fine! I thought we were back on track.. he woke at 5am! (But we just had the clocks go back so clocks were showing 4) so 10 hour night. He usually does 12. I tried everything to get him back to sleep… nothing worked. But I kept him in his room, in the dark until 6:30. (Which would have been 7:30 before time change)
He had a 1hr nap at 7:20-8:20

We are in serious sleep debt territory! He is averaging 13hrs total sleep. With Friday only being 11!! When he was on 2 naps he was at 15hrs consistently! He’s high sleep needs and so very very sensitive to being overtired.

I had messaged you recently about some EMW last week - waking at 5 (1.5hrs before DWT) I was holding him and contact napping until DWT to keep him on track but this obviously wasn’t enough to keep him on track and this morning didn’t even work. So I might be ready to rip the Band-Aid off and let him cry in the morning.

I’m going to do everything I can to get him back on top of things but my question.. if a sleep debt goes on for too long, can a baby just get used to less sleep? I’m so terrified of this happening and really want him back to 12hrs night sleep and his 2-3hr day sleep. I know he needs it! These EMW of 5am and his “split night” are not good signs!

Weirdly though.. his mood is great! I don’t know if it’s just part of getting older, he used to be so visibly tired but he seems quite happy these days on such little sleep.

Any insights or tips welcome.

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover The mood is definitely a getting older thing. It’s a double-edged sword: easier to make it through the day w an overtired kid, harder to troubleshoot sleep problems (bc you get fooled into thinking they had enough sleep).

You’re heading into the transition full speed. Main things to remember:
1) bc your kid is higher sleep needs, he needs shorter TWT per day, so if he needs 15 hours then final 1-nap schedule should have 9 hours total wake time
2) in the beginning though, bc sleep debt is so high, you actually need even shorter total wake fime, like 8-8.5 hours
So go based on that. If he was capable of 12 hour nights most days before, fine to set your one/nap bedtime to 12.5 or 13 hours before DWT. Treat all wakings w CIO. If kiddo is asleep during DWT, let him sleep in. Use whatever pre/nap WW that you think will result in the longest nap (I’d start w 4 hours and fine tune).

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hi omega! Unsure if you’ve come across this or have any insights-this past month has been ROUGH! My good sleep is all over the shop- I think we’re still in sleep debt territory as discussed above.
But we have a new issue- we put bubs in bed and he immediately starts screaming.. we leave him to CIO but he never lays down.. never! He was just hanging over the edge of the cot.. not sleeping.. not crying. It got to 1.5hrs so my partner went in and picked him up, he fell straight to sleep.
He woke up at 1:30am and the same thing happened- he eventually stopped screaming but never laid back down. We eventually went in but he would go back to sleep until 4am.

He is not new to standing at all.. I am just so confused how to get him to sleep. How do i get out of sleep debt territory if he can’t go to sleep or stay asleep. This is very perplexing!

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover Separation anxiety? We were hit w it at 16m right during the transition so yeah that was fun. I find that sleep debt really compounds it. Bad overtiredness also causes the standing up crying.

Frequent check-ins can backfire bc you can work him up to a frenzy. Try to see if you can stay by the crib and help guide him. I was able to guide my son onto his belly and rub his back, and this helped him. You might end up having to retrain later though.

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant Hi omega! I have a very general sleep training question- it might be a dumb one. My baby has always pretty religiously fallen asleep independently since 5/6months. The 2-1 transition has kicked our butt a bit and we’ve had some issues settling at bedtime on the odd night and split nights and EMW. We sometimes assist him to sleep at the start of the night.. but should we be just CIO for all bedtimes and wakes? He never really cried long when we initially sleep trained but I feel like he has stamina now and I’m so scared of sleep debt getting worse so sometimes assist to sleep- laying a hand on him and staying in the room.

But everything is getting a bit too messy now and I think we’re confusing the situation.. so even if he’s overtired and struggling to fall asleep.. would your advice be to just CIO and no longer assist? Are we making it worse in the long run by assisting on the odd night he struggles?
I know you used CIO- so have you religiously followed it at bedtime?

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover Yeah it’s a good question. My guess is it’ll vary child to child and family to family.

We are pretty religious about independent sleep at bedtime.m, since ST at 4m. We broke it once around 6.5m when kiddo was OT and fell asleep on dad. But then again plenty of times our friends’ kids would fall asleep in the car on the way home, and they just transfer to bed with no problem, so I don’t think it’s cut in stone.

Re MOTN, a friend has helped resettle a few of those during the 2-1 and her kid was fine. As soon as she figured out the schedule and he setttled into the wake windows, he stopped waking up.

I would think about it this way: your goal in assisting now is 1) to finish the transition-ish so you know the rough limits of your kid’s wake windows, sweet spot for bedtime, etc and 2) to help him get over this developmentally appropriate hump. Then when the dust has settled, you have things set up to retrain. Sleep pressure will be pretty high at bedtime at that point (bc the 1 nap WWs are v long for him) so hopefully he won’t protest too hard w retraining. Also even if you had maintained independent sleep habits they might test you at this age anyways. My son threw a massive tantrum in his crib around this age when he didn’t want to sleep and it was hilarious. None of that heart wrenching stuff you get w initial sleep training.

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant So last night for instance- he screamed for 1hr 25mins before falling asleep but if we had assisted then he would have fallen asleep much quicker.. and he woke this morning at 1hr before DWT.. my guess is because he’s OT from his last WW being stretched from taking so long to fall asleep. So now we’ve started the day in the back foot..

Conversely, We’ve worked out that responding to MOTN wakes only prolongs them so we don’t respond. With a response he can be up for 2+ hours but with no response he can be back asleep in about 1hr ish

We just can’t seem to get this nap transition at all.. massively failing. But I feel like trying to focus on forcing independence at bedtime instead of trying to claw our way out of a sleep debt is backfiring.

Especially as it’s not every night.. the 2 nights prior to last night, he fell asleep by himself completely fine. So it’s not that he doesn’t know how.. it’s just an overtired issue.

Will an overtired baby learn to fall asleep on their own? Or will it always just take him longer if we force him to do it independently. It’s a discussion my partner and I are having over and over and over at the moment.

 

[knowledgeisnotignorant]

@archangellover Poor little guy!!! Yeah he sound massively OT. I think of crying at bedtime as just the kiddo being uncomfortable and screaming "Help I want to sleep!!!" As you pointed out, 2 nights ago (when he was presumably less OT) he fell asleep just fine.

And yes, check-ins for MOTN backfired for us at this point too. It could become useful again later (we just checked in again two weeks ago when kiddo had some OT wakings from traveling--I helped him get his sleep sack on and he fell quickly back to sleep after) so you just have to go by feel here.

Like I said before, if it were us my husband and I would probably assist to sleep (esp if all it takes is you sitting by the crib with a hand on him), and once he's less OT / has less separation anxiety retrain him. Chances are he'd be totally fine because he's pretty used to independent sleep. Just be careful not to escalade any intervention. If you're there with him and a hand on him, he's got enough support. If he starts asking for more stuff (being held, taken out, being walked around), that's him being a pain and you need to stop responding right away. My son tried to do that at 18m and I shut him down immediately. Just one night of tantrum and he learned not to pull that kind of shenanigan again.

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant This is what my gut is telling me.. it’s also telling me he’s not ready for 1 nap.. but we just keep going back and forth (its been months now) and this is the mess we’re in and I can’t quite claw my way out of it.

I’ve spoken to a sleep consultant (I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself.. they are just so black and white) and they think that if I assist to sleep then he won’t know how to put himself back to sleep and that’s why we’re having some MOTN wakes.. but that’s just not the case. We had a MOTN wake 2 nights ago when he easily put himself to sleep.. conversely we’ve had nights where we assisted to sleep and he had no wakes.

She’s basically saying we have to Sleep train for start of the night and naps… but I’m just certain that if I’m not assisting back to sleep for naps if he needs it then this sleep debt will keep building and building

 

[archangellover]

And by “assistance” - he usually just needs someone in the room with a hand on him… it’s not rocking or anything

 

[archangellover]

@knowledgeisnotignorant I thought separation anxiety. And reallllyyyy bad sleep debt. My partner wants to leave him to CIO but I’m of the opinion that he needs all the help he can get to dig himself out of this sleep debt and if we need to retrain when he’s caught up then so be it.
He had an 8 hour night 2 nights ago.. 8!!! He usually sleeps 12-13 hour nights.

I think his struggles with falling asleep are due to being absolutely exhausted.. hopefully once he’s caught up, it’s a quick re-training